Steve Blow: On health care, Perry offers potshots but no plan

It’s a phrase that hadn’t come to mind in a long time. And it had been even longer since I last used it.

But it seems so appropriate for Gov. Rick Perry and others right now:

“Put up or shut up.”

Now, I’m a big proponent of civil debate, so I would never actually tell the governor of Texas or anyone else to shut up. But sometimes a colloquial phrase sure hits the mark.

And when it comes to health care, I’m certainly ready for the governor and a host of other naysayers to either put up or shut up.

To put it more politely: If you don’t like this plan, please suggest another. Or kindly stifle yourself.

I’d like to see Americans of all political persuasions demand more than just potshots at this point. It’s the only way I see of moving this tiresome debate toward something productive.

A specific alternate plan ought to be the price of admission for criticizing the current plan. Call it “socialized medicine” or a “Washington power grab” or any other politically loaded phrase you’d like, but the next sentence out of your mouth ought to be a concrete proposal for something better.

Otherwise, we’re just going to get more performances like we saw on Monday from Perry — lots of posturing in front of lots of cameras with nary a word to move us forward on health care.

As I wrote here the other day, I’m reserving judgment on the current reform plan. Unlike the critics, I just consider myself open-minded about it. It’s here, and I’m willing to wait and see if it can work.

Call me crazy, but the more Perry and other GOP partisans rail against it, the more I get the impression they are worried that it will work, not that it won’t.

Republicans want us to forget that what they deride as “Obamacare” is really a creature of their own creation. “Romneycare,” it ought to be called.

Many Democrats would have preferred the simpler approach of virtually every other economically advanced country. Universal care, it’s called. Or, to put it in American terms, “Medicare for all.”

Provide a floor of basic coverage for everyone, and let those with money buy whatever gold-plated health care extras they choose.

But with the two little scare words “socialized medicine,” Republicans succeeded in killing any consideration of that approach.

So centrist Republicans and Democrats began looking for a middle ground that extends coverage to more people but preserves a free-market system and the role of insurance companies.

That’s what we got. And let’s give credit where credit is due. As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney passed the prototype there. It might have spread, but then the rightward shift of the Republican Party left health care reform in the dust as a party priority.

So Democrats picked up the middle-ground approach and here we are — with Republicans fuming against their own plan and Democrats sure hoping it works.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Then, in an astonishing piece of political theater, Perry seemed to draw a line in the sand this week, saying: “We’ve got the worst health care in America, and we like it just fine.”

But what Perry calls a Washington power grab looks to me like nature’s inevitable rush to fill a vacuum — in this case, a leadership vacuum.

In his umpteen years as governor, where has Perry been in trying to bring health coverage to more Texans? For all his talk of preferring state-based solutions, what plan has he ever advanced?

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About Steve Blow

Career track: Worked as a reporter at the Fort Worth Press and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Joined The Dallas Morning News in 1978. Worked as a reporter until 1989, when I began writing the column.

Most unforgettable experience on the job: Probably flying in a fighter jet with the Blue Angels. Somewhere in the midst of that looping, zooming, twirling flight, I remember thinking, "I love my job."

Something people don't know about me: In college, I worked in a funeral home. (It was more lively than you might expect.)

If I had two spare hours, I would: See a movie, preferably one with lots of laughs and not a single gun battle.

The secret of a good news column is: Introduce the reader to a person worth knowing. Or put into words the reader's own thoughts. Or best of all, offer a view that differs from the reader's, but in a way that intrigues, not antagonizes.